I don't dislike Cary Grant but I've found his performances annoying in enough films to notice; this, Arsenic & Old Lace and Bringing up Baby. I don't dislike him in North by Northwest but I really find that movie unbearably silly. On top of that I find the endless raving about Grant's class tiresome. I don't have a clue what his class does for the viewers who herald it. It doesn't do a thing for me.
In the behind-the-scenes feature included with this DVD Patrcia Hitchcock says that Grant was her fathers favorite leading man; I think he was wrong. Jimmy Stewart was a better leading man in a string of better Hitchcock movies.
With it's ruined ending this is really half a movie and doesn't bear discussion, and can't support the high ratings it's getting. Even if the movie had it's ending intact there's not much to it. Fontaine is a completely unsympathetic sucker. She has to remain numb, inactive, and unwilling to contact anyone but Johnny for the whole movie, in either ending, for his ploys to work. That's not much to work with. Cary Grant begins every line with "Monkeyface..." until I wanted to strangle him. He says it about sixty times. It's positively grating. Hitch's technique here is shockingly shallow. An endless succession of rooms/sets have a phony skylight projected on the rear wall as a spiderweb effect. And a light-bulb in a glass of milk may make fans excited, but it can't save a movie this poorly made.
Peter Bogdanovich should retire if he does one more Hitchcock/Cary Grant imitation on a DVD. I think that's his whole career now. As soon as I saw him, I thought, oh crap, here comes an imitation that only he's impressed with. Instead there were two! oh joy!
In the behind-the-scenes feature included with this DVD Patrcia Hitchcock says that Grant was her fathers favorite leading man; I think he was wrong. Jimmy Stewart was a better leading man in a string of better Hitchcock movies.
With it's ruined ending this is really half a movie and doesn't bear discussion, and can't support the high ratings it's getting. Even if the movie had it's ending intact there's not much to it. Fontaine is a completely unsympathetic sucker. She has to remain numb, inactive, and unwilling to contact anyone but Johnny for the whole movie, in either ending, for his ploys to work. That's not much to work with. Cary Grant begins every line with "Monkeyface..." until I wanted to strangle him. He says it about sixty times. It's positively grating. Hitch's technique here is shockingly shallow. An endless succession of rooms/sets have a phony skylight projected on the rear wall as a spiderweb effect. And a light-bulb in a glass of milk may make fans excited, but it can't save a movie this poorly made.
Peter Bogdanovich should retire if he does one more Hitchcock/Cary Grant imitation on a DVD. I think that's his whole career now. As soon as I saw him, I thought, oh crap, here comes an imitation that only he's impressed with. Instead there were two! oh joy!